[Harp-L] Bee'swaxin'

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Everybody, 

 

Here's my Bee's Wax sealing method.  It's simple and fairly easy to do.  I
have a Pyrex bread loaf baking pan that I've loaded up with wax that I got
at Michael's.  It takes about 20 minutes to melt 2 inches worth of wax into
the bottom of the Pyrex dish.  I've never tried to remove the wax from this
dish - it's dedicated to this purpose.  When I buy a new Blues Harp (these
are the ones I seal) and I've done what ever else I want to it in the way of
widening the screw holes and rounding of the sharp corners and all I put it
in the oven to heat it up. You have to do this so that the relatively cool
temperature of the comb doesn't make the wax solidify when it makes contact
the hot wax. While the comb is warming up I pop the Pyrex dish in the micro
wave and melt the wax.  This takes about 15 minutes.  When the wax is
liquefied, I take the warmed up comb and immerse it in the wax.  I use a
jumbo paperclip that I've bent open and put a little right angle hook on the
end that I can insert into one of the screw holes.  The comb will fizz a
little as the wax soaks in.  After the comb has been in the wax for about 3
minutes I take it out and blot it with paper towels to get any drips off and
then let it cool.  Now it's done.

 

I do this all on the top of my stove.  You need oven mitts to transfer the
Pyrex dish from the micro to the stove.  You need to watch you don't char
the comb in the oven while it's heating up.  Set the oven to about 250 F.  I
read post to harp-L warning about the wax catching fire in the microwave but
I've never had that problem.  Once the comb is sealed in this way it's good
for life.  I have several Blues harps sealed in this way that were done five
or six years ago (when I started to get obsessive about my harps) and they
are still completely sealed.  I've gone through a couple of reed plate
replacements on many of them and they're still sealed very nicely. 

 

I think a sealed comb plays really nicely but sealing does create some
problems that you should consider.  For one thing, the whole harp is now
fairly water repellent.  If you are a fairly juicy player, you are going to
have reeds clog up with moisture much more easily with a sealed harp.
You'll have to tap out the moisture more frequently while playing and when
you've finished.  All this extra moisture will go to work on your reeds and
reed plates more intensely.  When a wood combed harp isn't sealed there are
less of these kinds of problems. 

 

The wood used for the Blues Harp is an open grained wood, kind of like oak
in this respect.  The pare wood used in the Marine Band harps is going to
absorb the wax much more slowly so you'll want leave this kind of comb in
the wax longer.  

 

Also bear in mind that Mark Hummel and Jerry Portnoy both play Marine Band
harps out of the box with no tweaking at all and those guys are awesome.
Both have told me they've use custom harps as well but that they didn't see
much of a difference to warrant the extra cost.  Of course they get some
kind of half-off deal from Honer too.

 

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh